And so the war comes here. or PostMortem vs. Hypertension

[zZaRDoZz]

To all the Bloodites and specifically those of the Transfusion team.

Greetings.


I'm sure you're aware of the intense conflict going on around the Hypertension Mod. They have been accused of making a parody of Blood by some rather prominent folks in the Blood community. Clari87, Hypertension's team leader has been thoroughly denounced by the Postmortem community in some extreme language. I would like to gather your thoughts here on this issue. It has critical baring on the community of people who call themselves Bloodites.

First off I would like to reveal my own bias in the matter as to foster open discussion.

I frequent the Postmortem and have on and off for a number of years. took an early interest in hypertension due to it's upbeat outlook and highly motivated team members. I have stated in the past that the idea of new characters, game play and enemies was a good one and I made several suggestions in many a blood2 and blood3 thread. I may not have liked some of Hypertension's ideas but my criticism along such lines was kept at a low level because I saw tremendous potential in TDG mods if not Hypertension itself. The various team members all seemed friendly enough. They did not shirk off suggestions about working with Kurt Fuhr.

Of late I've seen that hypertension would make radical game play changes to the Blood formula and some rather intense character changes to Caleb as well. While I hope Clari87 changes the mod I will state here and now she has a right to do what ever she sees fit. The recent all out battles that have been waged have been costly and extremely emotional. No doubt feelings have hardened to such an extent that any suggested change to something more blood like would be treated as some sort of attack against the Hypertension team's work or there rights to do so.

I'm now against the Hypertension mod as it now stands. My task here is to ask the Transfusion team to consider publicly stating that Hypertension should not be allowed to use any resources that are contained in the Transfusion project. I know this would involve statements by specific individuals who actually created the work, I also know that Hypertension has prior permission to use some of Transfusions resources. Make no mistake, this is a highly symbolic act and has no real power to stop the Hypertension team. I know that some may feel as though you've been mistreated in the past by members of the Postmortem, including myself.
I hope you can see that past any feelings you might have towards particular individuals and actually examine the arguments both for and against Hypertension.

Here's a link to Hypertension for those who want to examine it for your selves.


http://tdgmods.blogspot.com/





title: caleb poster.

^^^An older concept drawing of Caleb no longer used.

EDIT 3/31

[I Live...AGAIN]

Hey zZaRDoZz, how have you been?

Everyone assumes I haven't been around because I haven't posted much lately but I assure you I check all the forums almost daily.

I became aware of Hypertension recently, and have been in contact with Clari.

zZaRDoZz, I have respect for you in this community. Don't fall into the roleplaying Postmortem elitist mindset. They can claim to love Blood all they want but they routinely go overboard with flaming and spewing nonsense about people who create Blood-related projects outside of their own little clan. They have done it on this forum. I am tired of them freaking out everytime someone tries to make something that they dont feel is an exact replica of the game. They do way more to destroy and separate the Blood community than anything else.
Now I see them screaming about stealing content and all sorts of things. When you have a run-in with Postmortem they will try to troll you to death, thats what they do. They have 3 or 4 people there who have nothing better to do when they are not running around in their Caleb costumes but to flame people who aren't as obsessed as themselves.

Like I said, I have talked with Clari. She is not stupid. She isn't going to use copyrighted material without permission. But even if she did, isn't that her responsibility? Who nominated any of us the Blood police? If anyone uses copyrighted content from any games and you have a problem with it, contact the developers and let them deal with it. Simple as that.

The Hypertension team has my support. I have seen what they are doing, they can do whatever they want. I will help them if I can. I'm not particularly fond of drastically changing the game or story but they can do whatever they want.

Who says their game has to be an exact replica of Blood? If they take little bits and pieces of it to make their own creation so what?
Why be against someone doing something that has absolutely no effect on you?
If the game is s***, dont play it.
If you dont like the story, dont play it.
If the game is good, but you dont like how they went about making it, dont play it.
Hypertension is not Blood, nothing is. But why cant they create something kind of like it if they want?

The postmortem trolls will soon follow I'm afraid, but hopefully Willis will keep them under control.

[zZaRDoZz]

It's good to hear from you Joe. Thank you for responding. Joe, you'd hate me on international talk like a pirate day.


There are some pretty massive accusations against Cari. They go beyond the stealing of textures I'm afraid. She did sign a AULA with kurt that I'm eager to have discussed. Not the details of course but at least some clarifications. Kurt hates my guts now no matter what I say to patch things up. I gave her the best advice I could and it would have been better had she tried to survive at posty. She met up with you I see. At least she did that right.

I'm interested in argumentation as opposed to insults and Dimebog is the only one who appears to be able to generate anything worth going over.


I hope the transfusion members choose to respond. If they thought they could stay out of this mess without comment they were wrong. They have respect but with respect comes responsibilities.

[Tchernobog]

Hey zZaRDoZz, how have you been?
zZaRDoZz, I have respect for you in this community. Don't fall into the roleplaying Postmortem elitist mindset. They can claim to love Blood all they want but they routinely go overboard with flaming and spewing nonsense about people who create Blood-related projects outside of their own little clan. They have done it on this forum. I am tired of them freaking out everytime someone tries to make something that they dont feel is an exact replica of the game. They do way more to destroy and separate the Blood community than anything else.

The postmortem trolls will soon follow I'm afraid, but hopefully Willis will keep them under control.

Hello again Joe,

I do agree with much of what you are saying. I do not wish to appear insulting to anyone at the Postmortem, but I myself have been annoyed with some of there attitudes from time to time. The first vandal of the Blood Wiki shared a similar Postmortem elitist mindset, causing him to vandalize an article he created in the first place. I also think there objection to fan games, and fan media in general, hurts the community more than it helps it.

When it comes to HYPERTENSION, I dont particularly like the general design choices of the game, but my opinion really has no relevance to what they should decide to do. It is their project, and they can do what they like with it. Judging by what I have seen, they have not been to rude when discussing the project, Clari even asked me if she could create a HYPERTENSION Blood Wiki article (making sure that she would not be causing a problem by doing so). Though to be fair, I have not seen how she handled herself over at Posty since I rarely check there forums.

To soften anything I may have said, I certainly do hope the the Transfusion forums does not get involved in a flame war because of this. I was looking over some of the threads from before I arrived here last may, and I was dismayed by how much bitterness there was. And it did seem to cost the forums, only recently has there been a an up surge in activity. I certainly do hope we do not loose this due to bickering.

It will be interesting what the Transfusion team makes of this (I am guessing it would either by Slink or DustyStyx that will be the first to comment.).

[Tchernobog]

Hello one and all, it is I Gideon of the Blood Wiki again (posting as Tchernobog since guest doesn't work anymore). You haven't seen me ever since my brother took over as the Blood Wiki PR person. I have come just to say how much this saddens me. I only joined the Blood community a year ago, but looking through it all and its history it seems sad that there is so much nastiness. First I will say this, HYPERTENSION can be whatever Clari and TDG want it to be, I also don't personally like some of their ideas, but I don't care what they do. I will still probably have a peek at it as it is my duty as a Blood historian for the Wiki and because it will run on GNU/Linux (that is why I am more against the proposed idea of a Source engine squeal to HYPERTENSION than the first game itself), but I will probably never hold it in as high esteem as other fan games like the Doom total conversion and The Flesh Game. It is all down to freedom of speech, if they want to make something inspired by Blood, let them. Who knows? It may bring more people to the community for both games. I also don't see why it would be wrong for them to use other project's textures, this is in part due to my support for GNU-style free software, but the way I see it is if Transfusion can use Blood textures than any fan work can. The only exception is if Monolith itself says no, and I doubt that would happen. I certainly haven't found Clari rude to Blood or any Bloodite, see what Tchernobog said about her, and note that her HYPERTENSION blog actually links to us at the Blood Wiki, no other Blood site does that (by the way, that is a bit of an informal request guys! ). I also eagerly await Blood II: Resurrection, even if I don't personally agree with Kurt's sentiments on Blood II: The Chosen. I respect Kurt's ability with LithTech and give him full support for his vision of Blood II. I still feel that the official Blood II is the only true Blood sequel, but that doesn't make me want to stop others from making their own. The same goes for anyones vision of Blood, which is what Clari is doing. I don't want the Blood community to schism so please guys, learn to live with the fact that other people don't see Blood (and Blood II) the way you do! Don't whinge if HYEPERTENSION, Transfusion, or ZBlood are slightly different than the original, don't whinge if someone makes Caleb have red hair or something like that. Just feel proud to live in a community about a game that has sparked so many imaginations. Peace everyone!

[Elric]

I'm sure you're aware of the intense conflict going on around the Hypertension Mod.

Like Joe, I visit these forums daily. But I read almost exclusively Transfusion related threads, so actually I didn't even know this mod before you mentioned it here. As for Postmortem forums, I may have visited them a couple times before, but that's about it.

As Joe pointed out, there's no such thing as "a Blood Police". And even if it existed (God forbid!), it probably wouldn't be the Transfusion Project.

That being said...

My task here is to ask the Transfusion team to consider publicly stating that Hypertension should not be allowed to use any resources that are contained in the Transfusion project.

From a legal standpoint, a number of resources we use in TF (mostly, a lot of textures and almost all the sounds and musics - the maps status is unclear to me) is copyrighted materials Infogrames / Atari has explicitly agreed to let us play with. If I'm not mistaken, the legal papers we have only grant this right providing: (1) we only use them for this project, (2) we don't sell the product, and (3) we don't use the name "Blood", basically. So :

if Transfusion can use Blood textures than any fan work can

... well, legally no. In practice, you can always take your chance of course.

The rest of the data belong to their respective authors. It's up to them to give it to another project, or not. Or to not give a s**t as long as they are given the credits they are due, which I suspect is where most if not all TF members will stand

The source code is under the GNU GPL, so things are perfectly clear on this side.

[zZaRDoZz]

Thank you all for responding. @ Erlic, I was thinking specifically of Luke Kazashi's models. It looks as if your last statement would cover that. I'm glad you've chosen to be heard.

[predator]

The rest of the data belong to their respective authors. It's up to them to give it to another project, or not. Or to don't give a s**t as long as they are given the credits they are due, which I suspect is where most if not all TF members will stand

Precisely.


Personally I have nothing against that project. It's nice to see someone wants to do something fresh and different. I have no idea if I'll ever care to play it but I wish them luck.

I also don't understand the whole issue with flames at Postmortem. Who would really care that some people at Postmortem hate that project? It's their opinion and that's it. Why would it be important at all?
The same goes for our site by the way - if people bash that project here, why would anyone really care?

Anyway, the whole thing seems to be a great advertisement for that project.

[wangho]

I'm a bit split on the issue. On one hand, it's her project and she seems really excited about it and it is horror and Blood related. Even though I don't like some of the concepts, at this point, I don't see how it would harm Blood very much.

On the other hand, when you stand by passively and don't raise a voice to things you don't agree with, that's just as bad. It promotes laziness and an inept piece of art/media. It's sort of on the same level as using a cartoony and plastic looking CGI background instead of a real set that was built by people. Constructive arguments are good and healthy, but Postmortem can get a little overzealous and I can very well see the conduct scaring away any fans of the series that may be looking to join a forum that want to discuss the franchise.

It also seems a little absurd that so much attention and negative energy can be turned towards something hated so passionately, yet on the other hand, an author releases a new authentic Blood 1 map with it's own post at a forum, yet there's little chatter about the work at all. No praising, no criticisms, just a general lack of acknowledging it even exists. It may not be the best work in the world, but it is a very rare new Blood map. Damned if you, damned if you don't.

[Corbin]

I, for one, want to stay out of this because it wasn't my intention to spark a flame war or any of the sort between these two communities, but I really hold this one in higher regard as the maturity level goes.

To my credit, I did ask permission from one of the Transfusion members about using the models under license (I have a copy of it somewhere, from Luke Ashdown, dated 8/23/08, before I started using the models, and I have explicitly stated everywhere I go that models are from Transfusion, and the license agreement from Transfusion/Luke is embedded in the game data file) and permission was explicitly granted as long as I abide by the license agreement, which I have. Also, the textures in Hypertension are 100% original. I drafted up a EULA for Kurt when he was using our textures to make sure they wouldn't be outsourced to any other person or project (which I have a copy of), which he promptly destroyed himself. I expressed my dismay in his complete turnaround on me, so he chose to abolish it. I had nothing to do with that decision.

I did listen to some of the Postmortem members (as stated in my recent blog post) but I have a firm mindset about how I want the game to go, and I think once people actually play it and see how different, yet familiar, it is, they'll realize that it's not so bad. Gameplay has a lot to do with it.

So, as far as these forums go, I apologize if I'm bringing a bad aura to the Blood community in general, but Joe has made me realize that Postmortem is not the end all, be all. The Doom community and the Dreamcast community has both realized the potential of the project and are eager to try it out. I'm not letting this nonsense get to me, and I completely respect if you guys decide to not bring my project here.

I'm just excited about what we're doing, my team is excited, and we're bringing plenty of original spin, and hard work to our project.

But, if I can continue my updates here, like I did in my blog for the Blood community to see, I would really enjoy that. Postmortem locked the thread over there.


But again, if you don't want me to bring it here I totally understand, but I hope this post clears up some confusion in this particular thread about model use.

[DustyStyx]

1. Game media permission:
I've thought quite a bit about the permissions granted to us by Atari, and I've even talked to a lawyer briefly about what rights we have with the quitclaim. Ethically, the best answer I can give, is that I consider the skins I've done to be derivative works of the originals; thereby falling under whatever original copyrights the Blood media has. Meaning we can use them for Transfusion, but that does not extend to other projects, regardless of what I wish otherwise. This would apply to the skins of all the HUD weapons (excluding the Voodoo Doll and Life Leech), a few of the item pickups, some of the world models, Caleb, Cultist, Axe Zombie etc. Note, this does not include the skins for ALL the model skins, just a good chunk of them. The other artists would have to state what they feel is adequate.

Interestingly, the quitclaim does not absolve Transfusion of the rights another publisher might feel they have on Blood's media i.e. EIDOS could still come around and cry foul, regardless of what Atari has said, because they also published Blood at one point.

In the end, it would really be best to create a setting inspired by, but separate from Blood; much like what Min-Woo Hyung has done with his Priest series. Then all licensing issues become moot... well less of an issue anyway. Clari, it sounds like you've gone far enough from the core, you might as well take it the rest of the way.

2. Permission to use the boards for Hypertention communication.
I think the end word would have to come from Willis, he's footing the bill for the website after all. I would feel obligated to still play moderator even if I have little to say directly about your project, unless I am told otherwise.

[zZaRDoZz]

clari87

To my credit, I did ask permission from one of the Transfusion members about using the models under license (I have a copy of it somewhere, from Luke Ashdown, dated 8/23/08, before I started using the models, and I have explicitly stated everywhere I go that models are from Transfusion, and the license agreement from Transfusion/Luke is embedded in the game data file) and permission was explicitly granted as long as I abide by the license agreement, which I have. Also, the textures in Hypertension are 100% original. I drafted up a EULA for Kurt when he was using our textures to make sure they wouldn't be outsourced to any other person or project (which I have a copy of), which he promptly destroyed himself. I expressed my dismay in his complete turnaround on me, so he chose to abolish it. I had nothing to do with that decision.

Thank you for clearing that up.

It's good to see a variety of well thought out posts. Thank you one and all.

[Corbin]

Thanks for the reply Dustystyx. It's alright, I'll open a thread up @ my forums for discussion. But I really appreciate the professional and neutral response. =)

[Tchernobog]

Yes, it is quite nice to see how everyone is calmly discussing this given how heated it got over at Posty. I was wondering about the legal status of Transfusion myself a few times, and it is nice to see it being cleared up here. Maybe there should be a page discussing the legal status of Transfusion on the main website? That way there is a sort of “offical document” we could point to when any legal questions pop up?

Oh, and zZaRDoZz, I have been wondering what your avatar is supposed to be. All I know is that it looks like a stone gorilla Karl Marx look-alike (you got to admit, the likeness is striking).

[I Live...AGAIN]

Since we are all here, how about a Bloodbath game?